What It Is
by enigma731
Summary: Wishverse AU. The White Hats weren't in time to save Cordelia.
1. Chapter 1

**_Author's Note:_** There's really no easy way to summarize the plot of this fic. Well, actually, maybe there is. Cordelia died the first time she was attacked by Vamp Willow and Xander, so she didn't get to tell Giles about Anyanka. Therefore, Buffy never showed up to stop the factory from opening. Now, the vampires are slowly depleting the human population.

**_Disclaimer: _**Characters are not mine. They are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Please don't send monsters to get me.

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_**Chapter One**_

The little town is all dark when they pull up in front of the sign. The truck's brakes grown pitifully, and Buffy resists the urge to cover her ears. The fat, grease-stained driver's been eyeing her all the way, but now his gaze changes from lust to terror. She guesses he hasn't made any deliveries to Sunnydale in a very long time.

"This your stop?" He gives her a hard look, as if realizing for the first time that she isn't some blonde whore willing to exchange free rides.

"Yep." She presses her lips into a thin line and gives him her best dark-eyed glare. She's never liked men. Not since her father ran off with his secretary, anyway.

"You crazy? I've heard the stories. People stop off too long here, they don't come back out." He scratches his head with one meaty paw of a hand. "Some weird shit's going on here."

"You think you're my father now?" She doesn't like people trying to take care of her. She takes care of herself. Anyone else who tries is just in it for some ulterior motive.

"Hey, I don't wanna get blamed for anything." His face is sickly pale in the light from his dashboard.

"Then maybe you shouldn't pick up girls on the side of the road." Buffy gives him a nasty smile and opens the door. Her duffel bad swings to her hip as her feet hit the ground.

"Hey!" the driver yells down. "Don't blame me if you get your ass killed!" She slams the door on him and walks away.

The beginning of Main Street is deserted, pieces of trash rattling along the asphalt in the damp wind blowing up from the bay. Buffy takes a stake from her bag and starts off toward the center of town, the loud clunks of her boot-heels echoing off the buildings. The walls around her are dirt-caked, bright colors faded in the moonlight. Cheery letters leer down at her awnings and billboards, looking out of place.

She senses nothing in her surroundings as she moves. It's as though the entire town is devoid of life. Abnormal. More unsettling than an outright attack, though little is capable of rattling her anymore. She wonders for a moment whether she's too late. Have they already depleted the human population and moved on?

A few more steps down the street and she knows that they are still here. There's a presence in the shadows now, moving as she does, making no sound. But she's certain she's being followed, as certain as she would be could she see her pursuer in plain daylight. She comes to a stop in front of the only open doorway on the street. Light comes from within, and she can hear the faint sounds of a man screaming. A base beat pulses from one of the back rooms, and she realizes the building must be a club.

The Bronze, reads the sign over the door.

Pausing with her back to the street, Buffy listens. Whoever has been following her is getting closer, no longer taking the trouble to mask the sounds of heavy footsteps. Freezing, she coils her muscles into the beginning of a fighting stance. No point in trying to run away now. She has never run from a fight. Better to use the element of surprise. Feeling the beat of the music from inside rumbling through her chest, she waits, gauging distance by the crawling of her skin. Twenty feet. Ten.

Not waiting for an opening, Buffy spins and kicks. She's rewarded with a solid blow, her foot connecting explosively with a man's chest. He falls to the pavement, one hand going reflexively to the back of his head. Buffy stumbles, tripped by her own momentum, expecting more of an attack. Momentarily stunned, she pulls back into a defensive stance and eyes the man lying sprawled in front of her.

"Why are you following me?" she demands, more rattled than she will ever admit.

"Buffy? Buffy Summers." The man sits up gingerly, moving as though hindered by a serious injury. She knows she hasn't done that much damage with one kick. "It's you."

Buffy takes a step back, relaxing a little. Whatever he is, he doesn't appear to be trying to kill her. His face looks nearly emaciated in the bluish light coming from inside the club. His eyes are dark, cloaked in shadow beneath a thick brow. Still, she can make out enough of his features to know that he's the kind of man she might have ogled on a magazine cover before…everything. Gorgeous. Annoyingly so.

"What do you want?" If he isn't going to talk, she's going to start hitting again. She can already tell that too much silence is dangerous around him.

"I was supposed to help you. My destiny. I—I waited here for you, but you never…" He breaks off, as if it's too painful to continue.

"_You _were going to help _me?_" Buffy gives him her most patronizing stare. This man, who looks too beaten to stand up without a support, thinks he's going to help her? Her hand tightens around her stake as she suddenly wonders whether this is a trap.

"Don't worry," says the man, his eyes instantly going to her curled fingers. "I don't bite."

"You want me to believe that, start talking," she insists, taking another step back so he can get to his feet.

"The Master rose. They took Sunnydale, but I kept hoping you'd come. They let me live so I could be punished…they'd planned to kill me when The Master's factory opened, but they got careless. I got away." He pauses, looking at her uncertainly. She gets the impression that she could knock him back to the pavement with a few especially choice words, but she's here to find the factory, and her curiosity is piqued. "Now you're here."

"Tell me about the factory," says Buffy, relaxing again. "My Watcher sent me here because some old British guy called him. Said we had to shut it down. What is it?"

"The 'old British guy' was your—" He pauses awkwardly. "He's another Watcher. The Master's built a factory to turn humans into vamps. Manufactures an endless blood supply, too."

Buffy clears her throat, suddenly nauseated. There's very little that can upset her, but the image of live humans being pushed through some kind of vampire assembly line ranks high up on the list. It's like something out of one of her all-too-vivid nightmares.

"You know where it is?" she asks at last. She isn't keen on having this pitiful excuse for a man with her, but she might as well get as much information from him as she can. She's come to protect the remaining human population, after all. No point in stumbling around town lost while more innocents die.

The man nods, almost too quickly. "I can take you to it."

"All right. Next question." Buffy cocks her head toward the doorway behind her. "What's that?"

"A club. They…they took it over. They use it for…entertainment." His shudder is barely visible in the low light. When he speaks again, his voice is barely audible. "Those screams? Your old British man. They caught him just after I escaped."

Buffy's eyes widen, and she spins on her heel, approaching the door. The man is at her shoulder in a heartbeat, his fingers hovering just above the fabric of her shirt, not quite touching but close enough to stop her.

"Don't go in there." His voice is tinged with fear for the first time.

"Why not?"

"They'll be expecting you. You need to save your strength for the factory." There's something he isn't telling her. She's sure of it.

"That man in there is a Watcher, right? I've gotta get him out. It's my job." And he's the closest thing she has to an ally here, but she isn't about to tell this strange man about the Council. "You know what that's like?"

The man is silent for a moment, then nods. For a moment she thinks she's imagined it, but turns and walks another few paces when he remains silent. On an afterthought she turns back, a little surprised to see the shadow-man still standing there.

"Who are you?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

"A friend," comes his answer from the darkness.

Buffy pauses, pressing her lips together. It's been a long time since anyone's said that word regarding her. "Maybe I don't want a friend."

"Nobody said I was yours."

Buffy turns sharply, and kicks down the door.

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Lines quoted and twisted from 1.01 Welcome to the Hellmouth, 1.02 The Harvest, 1.07 Angel, and (of course) 3.09 The Wish. 

Feedback would be greatly appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two **

The inside of the club is a wreck. The smells of blood, sweat, and dirty bodies are almost overpowering. Buffy wrinkles her nose and takes a few steps inside. It looks like some twisted version of a war zone, and she feels her stomach turn again. Tables and chairs are overturned, broken legs sticking up like sinister teeth. Shattered glass crunches under her feet. Cages hang from the ceiling, human-sized steel bars casting weird shadows on the filthy walls. A body lies in one of them, arms flung out pitifully. She can smell rot from across the room. Something is very wrong here. Vampires don't keep dead bodies around, because of the smell if nothing else.

The stage is still partially set up, though the microphones and instruments are in a shambles. It looks half-rotted, as though some freakish zombie band is expected to play the next time there's an audience. A drum gapes at her from beneath an overturned music stand, its middle all punched-out and jagged. An unexpected wave of sadness washes over her. This was a happy place once, and now it's all in ruins. Buffy pushes the unwanted emotion away, replacing it with anger. Regret will only make her weak, and there's never time for weakness in her world.

A rustling from behind the curtains drags her into the back room. She nearly steps in a pool of blood, freezing, momentarily nauseated. Then a faint cough from the back makes her jump, and she's moving again, kicking aside the wreckage. The curtains raise a cloud of stale, dusty air around her, stirring dread deep in her gut. She's seen a lot of terrible things, but something about this place tells her it's about to change her definition of evil. The very ground seems to radiate malice.

A giant cage is attached to one wall, the bars just far enough apart for an arm to fit through. A sickening array of torture implements are displayed on the adjacent wall. She can barely make out the form of a man, crumpled on the floor in the dim light. Taking a step closer, she can see the top of his grayed head sagging limply from his neck. Trepidation fills her as she wonders whether she's missed her chance by one dying breath.

She's certain the noises have been coming from him. She puts her hands on the door of the cage, rattling experimentally. The bars are thick, designed to impede vampire strength. She's strong, but not nearly strong enough. Moreover, the old Watcher is shackled to the wall with chains too thick for her to readily break. She cranes her neck and presses her forehead to the rusty old bars, trying to decide whether the man is still alive.

A rustle of movement from behind her makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention. Buffy whirls to see that the shadow-man has finally come inside, though he looks decidedly uneasy in the sickly yellow light from the inside of the club. He stands just inside the curtain, the dark fabric billowing around his shoulders like a cape. He keeps his eyes down, and resolutely ignores the array of torture paraphernalia on the wall. Buffy sighs and cocks her head defiantly, telling herself that she's annoyed. She tries not to notice that he's even better looking than she previously thought, or the way his eyes seem to sparkle when they land on her.

"I don't suppose you've got a key on you," she says, schooling her voice into a tone of cool indifference.

The man stares blankly at her for a moment before answering. "They really don't…like me dropping in."

"Why not?"

"They really don't like me." There's a slight tremor in his voice, and for a moment she wonders whether he's actually just showed some sort of emotion. There must be more that he's not telling her, but she doesn't bother pressing. His personal sob story is the last thing she's interested in at the moment.

"How could that possibly be…" It comes out in her most caustic tone, though she isn't sure she actually intended it as an insult. The man's eyes flick to the other side of the room, away from her, and she wonders for a moment whether she's actually hurt him. With a shake of her head, Buffy forces the feeling away, telling herself that the feelings of strange men, gorgeous or otherwise, are beyond her effort at the moment. She's here with a job to do. Still, she can't help being distracted by curiosity. "If you're gonna be popping up with this cryptic wise man act on a regular basis, can you at least tell me your name?"

"Angel."

Something in the way he says it catches her and draws her in, though he's still making a conscious effort not to look at her. His voice is filled with more emotion than she's thought possible in a single word. Desperate for her to hear, but too unworthy.

"Angel." She repeats it without thinking, too lost in the dark smoke of images conjured up by the sound of his voice. Buffy realizes she's spoken aloud a moment too late, and mentally berates herself for showing even this small sign of weakness. He could still be the enemy. "Pretty name." Too flustered, and too girly. She's off her game and they both know it.

The man in the cage coughs loudly, and Buffy propels herself toward the bars again with all the nervous energy hanging in the air. Coming back to consciousness, the old Watcher pulls himself into a sitting position with the chains of his shackles. "Buffy Summers?" His voice is tinged equal parts British accent and awe.

"That's right," says Buffy, suddenly all business. Two needy men, and she's letting it go to her head. This is her job, not some super-hero gig. "You were the one who called my Watcher, right?"

The old man nods weakly.

"Wanna tell me what I'm doing here?" Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Angel flinch, and realizes how harsh her words sound. Then she wonders why she ought to care what he thinks. This is her job, and she needs to make sure this old Watcher is for real.

"The Master's factory," he says, too out of breath to form full sentences. "He's…building an army. You must stop him."

She glances over her shoulder at Angel, half tempted to laugh at the Watcher's overly formal tone. "So I've been told. And I assume you want me to get you out so you can help me?"

"If it's not—" He breaks off, coughing. "Too much trouble."

"It's a lot of trouble," says Buffy coolly. "So why don't you tell me where I can get a key for this lock?"

"The Master…one of his…lackeys…has it. Red hair." The Watcher shudders. "Her name is Willow. Nastiest vampire I've ever come across."

Buffy nods, unimpressed. "And she would be where?"

"They'll come back here." The Watcher coughs again. "You must take them by day."

"So what am I supposed to do now? Sit around crocheting you a pretty new scarf to celebrate your release?"

The Watcher shakes his head, pain creasing his face. "You've got to conserve your strength for…the factory. There's an abandoned house… 1630 Revello Drive. There are others there. They'll help you." His head sags against the wall, and Buffy wonders whether he'll survive long enough to be rescued. Still, she works for the Council, and that makes his rescue her mission.

"Fine." She turns on one chunky boot-heel, prepared to tell Angel that they are finished here. She's greeted by the site of an empty room, curtains still waving in the wind from what must have been a hasty exit. Sighing, Buffy tosses the curtains aside and makes her way through the wreckage and back out the door of the club.

She barely has a chance to get one foot across the threshold before the shadows burst into a flurry of motion and she's surrounded by vampires.

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Lines quoted and twisted from 1.01 Welcome to the Hellmouth, 1.02 The Harvest, 1.07 Angel, and (of course) 3.09 The Wish. 

Feedback would be greatly appreciated.


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